Brussels Town Hall tour: €15 with a video guide, €25 for the weekend tower tour, and shut on Tuesdays and Thursdays

💡 The Short Version: The Town Hall on the Grand-Place has two visits. The video-guide visit is €15 and takes at least an hour. The panoramic guided tour is €25, runs only on Saturdays and Sundays at 15:00 and 17:00 in English and 16:00 in French, and is the only way up the tower, by a spiral staircase, with groups of up to 15. The hall is shut on Tuesdays and Thursdays, open Monday, Wednesday and Sunday 11:00 to 17:00 and Friday and Saturday 15:00 to 19:00. The Brussels Card is free for the video guide. The reception hall does not take cash. Prices are in euros. Or book a tour: the Town Hall has no listing on GetYourGuide, and the guided walking tourad of the centre is from €25 (GetYourGuide).

Tickets and prices

The City of Brussels runs the Town Hall and sells tickets on its ticket shop and at the reception hall in the inner courtyard, which takes no cash. The shop sells dates to 31 December 2026.

• Video-guide visit. 23 stages through the corridors and richly decorated rooms, taking in a monumental staircase and a precious cabinet, over nearly six centuries of history. Allow at least an hour. The guide speaks French, Dutch, English, German, Italian and Spanish. The visit can be adapted to the use of certain rooms.
• Panoramic guided tour. The Wedding Hall and the Gothic Hall with a guide, the balcony over the Grand-Place, then the tower by a spiral staircase. Groups are limited to 15, in French or English.
• The Brussels Card and the MuseumPASSmusees are free for the video-guide visit. Brussels Card: is it worth it? has the sums.
• Luggage: free lockers, but no large luggage.

Where to buy

Tours worth paying for

The City of Brussels sells the Town Hall visit itself, and GetYourGuide has no ticket for it. A guided walk is the way to get a guide for the square. Prices are the lowest “from” prices, per person.

Brussels guided walking tour

From €25 · 4.6 stars from 4,320 reviews

Brussels: Guided Walking Tourad is a guided walk of the city centre. Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead.

Walking and tasting tour

From €70 · 4.9 stars from 577 reviews

Brussels: City Highlights Walking and Tasting Tourad adds tastings to a walk of the highlights. Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead. Brussels walking tours compares the others.

What to see

The Town Hall is the Gothic building on the Grand-Place with the bell tower. UNESCO calls it a pinnacle of Brabant Gothic and dates it to the early 15th century. It partly escaped the bombardment of 1695, and most of its ornament comes from restoration campaigns in the late 19th century. It still houses a large part of the city’s municipal services.

The Town Hall’s façade and bell tower on the Grand-Place. Photo: Thomas Quine, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

1. The staircase and the state rooms. The video-guide route winds round a monumental staircase and through the richly decorated rooms. It is the only visit that goes through the corridors.
2. The Wedding Hall and the Gothic Hall. The two main halls on the panoramic tour, with a guide.
3. The balcony. A view over the Grand-Place from the Town Hall itself, on the panoramic tour.
4. The tower. Reached by a spiral staircase, with a view over Brussels. The City asks that you be in good physical health, because the stairs are narrow.

The Gothic Hall, panelled in carved oak. Photo: Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

The order that works: on a Saturday or Sunday, take the 15:00 English tour, the first of the day. On a weekday, take the video guide on a Monday or Wednesday, when the hall opens at 11:00. What to skip: the panoramic tour if you cannot manage narrow stairs, since it is the only visit that goes up the tower and the video guide does not.

Hours, rules and getting there

• Getting there: the Town Hall is on the Grand-Place. Brussels-Central is the nearest main-line station, Brussels public transport has the metro and tram fares, and from Brussels-Midi take a local train one stop to Central.
• Meeting point: the reception hall on the ground floor, entered from the inner courtyard.
• The one thing that ruins a visit: arriving on a Tuesday or Thursday, when it is closed, or on a Friday morning, since it opens at 15:00.

What to book in Brussels has the closed days for every sight. The Grand-Place covers the rest of the square, and the Manneken Pis page covers the City Museum on the other side of it. Brussels walking tours compares the guided walks, and the old town walk is the self-guided one. Free things to do in Brussels lists what costs nothing round the square. Brussels with kids has the child prices for the Town Hall and the other sights. 3 days in Brussels places the Town Hall around its odd opening days. For a bed, see where to stay in Brussels.